Clarizen Blog

With Strategic Initiatives, You Can’t Afford Anything Less Than Success

While different companies have different goals at various points in their evolution, there is one underlying truth that cannot be denied. Without staying ahead of the competition, meeting customer expectations, and making money they won’t survive.

This is where strategic initiatives come in. Whether it’s to be on the cutting edge of innovation, penetrate new markets, or to increase the customer base – strategic initiatives are the lifeblood of every business. They are the primary means by which vision is translated into reality and by which mission becomes results. And precisely for these reasons, it is critical to ensure the speedy and effective success of these initiatives.

The Importance of Speedy, Effective Execution

When done right, strategic initiatives can generate millions of dollars in revenues, increase market share, and help drive innovation:

Taking a Turn on Churn

Just think of the impact of successfully executing an initiative to reduce churn by 5%. It has beennoted that improving customer retention by just 5% can improve per customer profits by at least 25%. Clearly, failing to execute such an initiative, or even a mere delay by a quarter or two can result in a profound impact on the health of the business.

Going to Town with Go-to-Market

Likewise, in vying to outdo the competition, being the first to come to market with a new product can be the make-or-break for the business.It’s no surprise then, how critical it would be to successfully execute an initiative to accelerate go-to-market with – for example, the Agile concept of “minimum viable product” (MVP), where products are developed with just the minimum features to enable a timely launch that satisfies early adopters.

But, getting development teams and testers to adopt new practices and collaborate effectively is not an easy task. Nevertheless, it’s a task that must be done – and without delays.To illustrate, there is thecaseof a tier-one industrial supplier that did successfully accelerate go-to-market using MVP, and reported to have achieved product improvements worth over $500 million in annual revenues.

Now, consider the alternative. Imagine the impact of not being able to manage this strategic initiative successfully. The cost would not only be measured in dollars, but also in market share, and probably even in customer retention rates.

An Initiative Delayed Is An Opportunity Lost

On the one hand, strategic initiatives can propel organizations to new heights of success. On the other hand, when not done right, the costs are high and many.The rates of “not done right,” in fact, are staggering. In astudy by PricewaterhouseCoopers, in which the firm reviewed 10,640 projects from 200 companies in 30 countries, it was uncovered that only 2.5% of the companies successfully completed 100% of their projects.

So how can you avoid becoming part of this statistic?

How to Ensure Successful Initiative Execution

There are three critical components to successful execution of strategic initiatives . . . and to avoiding being part of the 2.5%:

Visibility: through easy access to all of the internal and external data that is relevant to the initiative;

Collaboration: for assessing and discussing opportunities and changes easily and with context, and without having to wait for the bi-weekly or monthly meeting;

Agility: which is the result of visibility and collaboration, and which constitutes the ability to take fast and accurate decisions and actions as based on real-time data.